Removing conductive material to form conductive features in a substrate

ABSTRACT

Apparatuses having, and methods for forming, conductive features are described. A hole is formed in a substrate and a conductive material is deposited in the hole. A part of the conductive material that occupies a first lengthwise portion of the hole is removed, and a conductive feature that occupies a second lengthwise portion of the hole remains in the substrate.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This disclosure claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent ApplicationNo. 61/542,744, filed Oct. 3, 2011, the entire specification of which ishereby incorporated by reference in its entirety for all purposes,except for those sections, if any, that are inconsistent with thisspecification.

TECHNICAL FIELD

Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to the field of integratedcircuits, and more particularly, to techniques for formingthrough-silicon vias.

BACKGROUND

The background description provided herein is for the purpose ofgenerally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of thepresently named inventor, to the extent it is described in thisbackground section, as well as aspects of the description that may nototherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neitherexpressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the presentdisclosure.

Integrated circuit devices, such as transistors, are formed onsemiconductor dies or chips. Integrated circuit features continue toscale in size to smaller dimensions. The shrinking dimensions of thesefeatures are challenging conventional techniques of forming features,such as through-silicon vias (TSVs), within a substrate.

Conventional vias are fabricated using chemical etching to produce atunnel through the silicon or other substrate material. The hole is thenfilled with a conductive material to form a via. Conventional chemicaletching techniques, if applied to the formation of relatively smallTSVs, such as vias on the order of 10-20 μm in diameter, result incone-shaped TSVs that have relatively large diameters at the top of thesilicon surface, and relatively small diameters at the bottom of thesilicon surface. As a result, the TSVs formed using conventionaltechniques cannot be situated close together, or close to otherpackaging or integrated circuit features, somewhat obviating thebenefits of small-diameter TSVs.

SUMMARY

In one embodiment, the present disclosure provides a method of forming aconductive feature. A hole is formed in a substrate and a conductivematerial is deposited into the hole. A part of the conductive materialthat occupies a first lengthwise portion of the hole is removed, suchthat at least one conductive feature occupying a second lengthwiseportion of the hole remains. The hole may include a groove that extendsoutward from a center of the hole and that traverses a verticaldimension of the hole. The conductive features may be disposed at leastpartially within the groove.

In another embodiment, the present disclosure provides an apparatus witha substrate and a hole defined with the substrate. A first conductivefeature traverses from a top surface of the substrate to a bottomsurface of the substrate. The first conductive feature is formed byremoving a lengthwise contiguous portion of the substance that wasdeposited in the hole. The first conductive feature may be athrough-silicon via. The hole may include a center portion and aplurality of side features, and the first conductive feature may bedisposed in one of a plurality of side features.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Embodiments of the present disclosure will be readily understood by thefollowing detailed description in conjunction with the accompanyingdrawings. To facilitate this description, like reference numeralsdesignate like structural elements. Embodiments herein are illustratedby way of example and not by way of limitation in the figures of theaccompanying drawings.

FIGS. 1A-D illustrate top-level views of a substrate having conductivefeatures at various stages of fabrication.

FIGS. 1E-I illustrate top-level views of an example embodiment of aconductive feature at various stages of fabrication.

FIGS. 2A-D illustrate three-dimensional perspective views of a substratehaving conductive features at various stages of fabrication.

FIGS. 3A and 3B illustrate top-level views of example conductivefeatures according to various embodiments.

FIG. 4 is a process flow diagram of a method to fabricate asemiconductor package described herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Embodiments of the present disclosure describe methods of fabricatingthrough-silicon vias and other similar packaging and integrated circuitfeatures. Embodiments include fabricating conductive features that arerelatively small, such as vias with diameters less than 20 μm. Aspreviously noted, conventional chemical etching techniques are unsuitedfor fabricating vias that have relatively small diameters because suchtechniques result in cone-shaped vias. Techniques disclosed hereininclude drilling relatively large holes in a substrate, coating theinterior surfaces of those holes with a conductive material, and thenremoving a portion of the conductive material so that one or morerelatively small vertical conductive features remain within the hole.

FIGS. 1A-D illustrate top-level views of a substrate having conductivefeatures at various stages of fabrication. Referring to FIG. 1A, a hole102 is formed in substrate 100. The hole 102 is drilled, such as forexample using a mechanical drill, laser drill, or some other drill type.In the example shown in FIGS. 1A-D, the hole 102 includes several sidefeatures 104. The side features 104 may be grooves, channels, or otherfeatures that extend outward from the center of the hole 102 and runlengthwise down the hole 102 from a bottom surface of the substrate 100to a top surface of the substrate 100. The side features 104 may havedifferent shapes, e.g., round, semi-circular, square or rectangular. Thesubstrate 100 may include Silicon (Si), silicon-germanium (SiGe),germanium (Ge), gallium arsenide (GaAs), or other suitable substratematerial.

Referring to FIG. 1B, a conducive material 106 is placed into the hole102. The conductive material 106 may be, for example, aluminum (Al),copper (Cu), aluminum-copper alloy, nickel (Ni), or other conductivematerial. The conductive material 106 is deposited by electrodeposition,evaporation, a sputtering process, or other suitable process. Althoughthe example illustrated in FIG. 1B shows that the hole 102 is completelyfilled with the conductive material 106, in embodiments a portion of thehole 102 may be unfilled. An example of this is illustrated in FIG. 1C,where the conductive material 106 is placed into the hole 102 sufficientto coat the internal surface of the hole 102 and to fill the sidefeatures 104.

One or more lengthwise portions of the conductive material 106 areetched away, such as by employing, for example, chemical etching, orsome other etching process. In FIG. 1D, the conductive material 106 isshown etched away until one or more conductive features 108 remain. Theconductive features 108 occupy lengthwise portions of the hole 102. Inthe example shown in FIG. 1D, the conductive features 108 are disposedwithin the side features 104. A material, such as a non-conductingdielectric material, may be deposited into a center portion 110 of thehole 102 after the portion of the conductive material 106 has beenetched away. The dielectric material (not illustrated) may fully orpartially fill the center portion 110. The conductive features 108 maybe used as through-silicon vias (TSVs), through package vias (TPV), orsimilar features.

The conducive material 106 is etched away at least until the resultingconductive features 108 are physically separate from one another. Thedielectric material deposited into the center portion 110 may enhancethe electrical isolation between the conductive features 108.

The diameter of the hole 102 may be approximately 50 μm to 200 μm, andthe widest lateral dimension of the conductive features 108 may be lessthan 20 μm, such as on the order of 5 μm to 20 μm. Also, adjacentconductive features 108 may be relatively close to one another, such asbetween 5 μm and 40 μm apart. As previously noted, forming a TSV orother conductive feature with such relatively small dimensions using aconventional chemical etching process generally results in cone-shapedTSVs, making it difficult or impossible to space such TSVs closetogether without one TSV impinging on another TSV. But embodiments ofthe present disclosure include conductive features, such as conductivefeatures 108, that have substantially uniform shape and size along theirlengths, and may therefore be spaced relatively close together, therebyoccupying less space than if conventional processes for formingconductive features were used.

FIGS. 1E-I illustrate top-level views of an example embodiment of aconductive feature 108 at various stages of fabrication. While only oneconductive feature 108 is illustrated, it is to be understood that FIGS.1E-I apply to multiple conductive features 108.

FIG. 1E illustrates a dielectric or insulating layer 120 being depositedwithin the hole 102. The dielectric layer 120 is deposited to generallyconform to the contours of the side feature 104. The dielectric layer120 can be etched if desired such as by employing, for example, chemicaletching, or some other etching process.

FIG. 1F illustrates a conductive material being deposited within thehole 102 over the dielectric layer 120 to provide a metal layer 122. Theconductive material may be, for example, aluminum (Al), copper (Cu),aluminum-copper alloy, nickel (Ni), or other conductive material. Theconductive material is deposited by electrodeposition, evaporation, asputtering process, or other suitable process. As illustrated in FIG.1G, the metal layer 122 is then etched so that the metal layer 122 issubstantially within the conductive feature 108.

FIG. 1H illustrates another dielectric layer 124 being deposited withinthe hole 102 over the metal layer 122. The dielectric layer 124 can beetched if desired. This other dielectric layer 124 is used to insulatethe metal layer 122.

Referring to FIG. 1I, the center portion 110 of the hole 102 can then befilled with material 126. In accordance with various embodiments, thematerial 126 is a dielectric material. In such embodiments, thedielectric material deposited into the center portion 110 may enhancethe electrical isolation between the conductive features 108. Inaccordance with other embodiments, the material 126 is a conductivematerial. In such embodiments, the conductive material within the hole102 allows for a connection to, for example, ground.

FIGS. 2A-D illustrate three-dimensional perspective views of a substratehaving conductive features at various stages of fabrication. FIG. 2Acorresponds to the same or similar stage of fabrication illustrated inFIG. 1A. FIG. 2B corresponds to the same or similar stage of fabricationillustrated in FIG. 1B. FIG. 2C corresponds to the same or similar stageof fabrication illustrated in FIG. 1C. And FIG. 2D corresponds to thesame or similar stage of fabrication illustrated in FIG. 1D.

Referring to FIG. 2D, the conductive features 108 traverse a lengthwisedimension of the hole 102. Thus, the conductive features 108 can serveas conductors for features situated on or near the top and bottom of thesubstrate 100.

FIGS. 3A and 3B illustrate top-level views of example conductivefeatures according to various embodiments of the present disclosure. Theexamples illustrated in FIGS. 1A-D show the formation of conductivefeatures that wholly occupy the side features, or grooves, formed in theouter edges of the holes. In the embodiments of FIGS. 1A-D, theconductive material is etched away such that the conductive features 108are flush with an interior surface of the hole 102 in which they areformed. The example shown in FIG. 3A illustrates a substrate 300 withconductive features 302 formed by etching away the conductive materialto a point at which the conductive features are physically separate fromone another, but are not flush with the interior surface of the hole andextend inward towards a center of the hole 304. In this way, theconductive features 302 formed according to embodiments may take onvarious shapes.

In the example illustrated in FIG. 3B, triangle-shaped conductivefeatures 310 are formed into a substrate 312 by coating the interiorsurfaces of a hole 314 having a square-shaped interior portion andtriangular-shape side features 316. Although the example shown in FIG.3B illustrates conductive features 310 that are flush with the interiorof the hole 312, the conductive features 310 may also be formed suchthat they extend inward towards the hole, similar to the conductivefeatures 302 illustrated in FIG. 3A.

The examples illustrated in FIGS. 1A-D and FIGS. 2A-D include circularholes 102, with rounded side features 104. But embodiments, such as, forexample, the embodiment illustrated in FIG. 3B, are not limited tocircular-shaped holes and rounded side features. The inner portion ofthe holes may be, in various embodiments, substantially square,rectangular, elliptical, triangular, parallelograms, quadrangular,polygonal, and so forth. The side features may likewise be, in variousembodiments, curved, triangular, square, quadrangular, parallelograms,polygonal, and so forth. In various embodiments, holes may be formed inthe substrate without side features or grooves. For example, asquare-shaped hole may be formed in a substrate, a conductive materialdeposited to coat the interior surfaces of the square-shaped hole, andthen an etching process utilized to leave only the corners of thesquare-shaped hole filled with the conductive material, thereby formingfour conductive features in the corners that traverse the holelengthwise. Similar embodiments could utilize triangular-shaped holes,star-shaped holes, pentagon-shaped holes, and so forth.

FIG. 4 is a process flow diagram of an example of a method 400 tofabricate a semiconductor package described herein with respect to FIGS.1A-D, 2A-D and 3A-B. At 402, a hole is formed in a substrate. Thesubstrate may include Silicon (Si), silicon-germanium (SiGe), germanium(Ge), gallium arsenide (GaAs), or other suitable substrate material. Thehole may be drilled such as with a mechanical or laser drill, or formedin some other suitable manner. The hole may include one or more sidefeatures, such as grooves or channels, that extend outward from thecenter of the hole and that traverse a vertical dimension of the hole.

The hole may be one of various shapes. For example, the hole may besubstantially square, rectangular, elliptical, triangular, aparallelogram, quadrangular, polygonal, irregular, or some other shape.In embodiments where the hole includes side features, such as grooves orchannels, an inner portion of the holes may be, in various embodiments,substantially square, rectangular, elliptical, triangular, aparallelogram, quadrangular, polygonal, irregular, and so forth. In suchembodiments, the side features may be curved, triangular, square,quadrangular, parallelograms, polygonal, irregular, and so forth.Embodiments are not limited to holes and side features of any particularshape or shapes.

At 404, a conductive material is deposited into the hole. The conductivematerial may completely or partially fill the hole. In any event, theconductive material is deposited sufficient to substantially coat theinner surface of the hole, including filling one more side features inembodiments where the hole is formed with one or more side features. Theconductive material may be aluminum (Al), aluminum-copper alloy, copper(Cu), nickel (Ni), or other conductive material.

At 406, a part of the conductive material is removed from the hole. Apart of the conductive material that occupies a first lengthwise portionof the hole is removed, such that at least one contiguous portion of theconductive material that occupies a second lengthwise portion of thehole remains in the substrate. The part of the substrate that is removedpreviously traversed the length of the hole, and the part of thesubstrate that remains also traverses the length of the hole. Inembodiments where the hole has side features, such as grooves orchannels, the portion of the conductive material that remains is atleast partially disposed in one of the side features. Where multipleside features are present in the hole, multiple parts of the conductivematerial remain in the hole, at least partly situated in the sidefeatures. Where multiple conductive features remain in the hole uponremoval of a part of the conductive material, the multiple conductivefeatures are physically separate from one another, such that they areusable as separate vias or other conductive feature types. Multipleconductive features may be created concurrently according to variousembodiments.

At 408, a dielectric material is deposited into the hole. The dielectricmaterial may occupy all or some of the space where the conductivematerial was removed from the hole, and may serve to physically and/orelectrically isolate the conductive features from one another.

The description above may use perspective-based descriptions such asover/under, top, bottom, etc. Such descriptions are merely used tofacilitate the discussion and are not intended to restrict theapplication of embodiments described herein to any particularorientation.

For the purposes of the present disclosure, the phrase “A/B” means A orB. For the purposes of the present disclosure, the phrase “A and/or B”means “(A), (B), or (A and B).” For the purposes of the presentdisclosure, the phrase “at least one of A, B, and C” means “(A), (B),(C), (A and B), (A and C), (B and C), or (A, B and C).” For the purposesof the present disclosure, the phrase “(A)B” means “(B) or (AB)” thatis, A is an optional element.

Various operations are described as multiple discrete operations inturn, in a manner that is most helpful in understanding the claimedsubject matter. However, the order of description should not beconstrued as to imply that these operations are necessarily orderdependent. In particular, these operations may not be performed in theorder of presentation. Operations described may be performed in adifferent order than the described embodiments. Various additionaloperations may be performed and/or described operations may be omittedin additional embodiments.

The description uses the phrases “in an embodiment,” “in embodiments,”or similar language, which may each refer to one or more of the same ordifferent embodiments. Furthermore, the terms “comprising,” “including,”“having,” and the like, as used with respect to embodiments of thepresent disclosure, are synonymous.

Although certain embodiments have been illustrated and described herein,a wide variety of alternate and/or equivalent embodiments orimplementations calculated to achieve the same purposes may besubstituted for the embodiments illustrated and described withoutdeparting from the scope of the present disclosure. This disclosure isintended to cover any adaptations or variations of the embodimentsdiscussed herein. Therefore, it is manifestly intended that embodimentsdescribed herein be limited only by the claims and the equivalentsthereof.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method, comprising: forming a hole in asubstrate; depositing a conductive material into the hole; and removinga part of the conductive material that occupies a first lengthwiseportion of the hole, such that at least one conductive feature thatoccupies a second lengthwise portion of the hole remains in thesubstrate.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein: the hole includes a groovethat (i) extends outward from a center of the hole and (ii) traverses avertical dimension of the hole; and the at least one conductive featureis disposed at least partially within the groove.
 3. The method of claim2, wherein the part of the conductive material removed is at leastpartly removed from a center portion of the hole.
 4. The method of claim1, wherein the hole is substantially circular, polygonal, or irregularshaped.
 5. The method of claim 1, further comprising subsequent to theremoving the part of the conductive material, depositing a dielectricmaterial into the hole.
 6. The method of claim 1, wherein: the holeincludes a plurality of grooves on an outer edge of the hole, each ofthe plurality of grooves traverse a vertical dimension of the hole; andthe removing the part of the conductive material includes removing thepart of the conductive material such that a plurality of conductivefeatures are correspondingly disposed at least partially in theplurality of grooves.
 7. The method of claim 6, wherein the plurality ofconductive features are physically separate from each other.
 8. Themethod of claim 1, wherein the forming the hole in the substrateincludes drilling the hole.
 9. The method of claim 1, wherein: the holeincludes a center portion and a plurality of side features; and the atleast one conductive feature occupies one of the plurality of sidefeatures.
 10. An apparatus, comprising: a substrate; a hole definedwithin the substrate; and a first conductive feature traversing from atop surface of the substrate to a bottom surface of the substrate, thefirst conductive feature formed by removing a lengthwise contiguousportion of a conductive substance deposited into the hole in thesubstrate.
 11. The apparatus of claim 10, further comprising a secondconductive feature traversing from the top surface of the substrate tothe bottom surface of the substrate, the second conductive feature alsoformed by removing the lengthwise contiguous portion of the conductivesubstance, wherein the first conductive feature and the secondconductive feature are physically separate from one another.
 12. Theapparatus of claim 11, wherein the first and second conductive featuresare through-silicon vias.
 13. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein adistance between the first conductive feature and the second conductivefeature is less than 20 μm.
 14. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein awidest lateral portion of the first conductive feature is less than 20μm.
 15. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein: the hole includes a groovedefined on an interior surface of the hole that traverses a verticaldimension of the hole; and the first conductive feature is at leastpartly disposed within the groove.
 16. The apparatus of claim 15,wherein the lengthwise contiguous portion of a conductive substance isremoved from at least an interior portion of the hole.
 17. The apparatusof claim 10, further comprising a dielectric material deposited into thehole.
 18. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein: the hole includes a centerportion and a plurality of side features; and the first conductivefeature is disposed in one of the plurality of side features.
 19. Theapparatus of claim 18, wherein the plurality of side features aresubstantially circular, triangular, or polygonal.
 20. The apparatus ofclaim 10, wherein the hole is substantially circular, polygonal, orirregular shaped.